


Sinbound

by cowboykylux



Category: The Report (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Investigations, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Spoilers for The Report
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:28:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25273177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboykylux/pseuds/cowboykylux
Summary: Daniel Jones is in his second year of investigation into the CIA’s EIT program. His small staff of two additional investigators have just left him, in pursuit of other less messy and controversial cases. Nevertheless, he pushes on and on by himself…until he isn’t anymore.
Relationships: Daniel Jones (The Report)/Reader, Daniel Jones (The Report)/You
Comments: 20
Kudos: 38





	Sinbound

Two years. That’s how long it’s been, up to this moment.

Two years in this basement, surrounded by concrete walls and the faces of ghosts staring into his very soul. It’s haunting, being down here, Dan thinks. Walking empty halls in the middle of the night, the way that sounds echo and come from all directions at once, everywhere and nowhere.

He walks the halls now, something sour sitting in the pit of his stomach, something close to panic, he thinks. He’s not going to let it turn into anything real, he doesn’t have the time for that.

It feels like he doesn’t have the time for anything, anything except for this report.

He’s the last to leave the office, the last to leave the building, just as he is every night. Usually he’d stay later, but as he scans his badge to open the door that leads to the lobby of this dark cinder block building, his eyes struggle to focus. He must look particularly rough, because as he does scan himself out, the good-natured security guard gives him a pointed look.

“Do you ever sleep, Dan?” The security guard asks, and despite the exhaustion in Dan’s bones, he manages a friendly smile.

“I used to, it got in the way of work.” He jokes, earning a smile back.

“Anything in that bag contain the real names of CIA officers, assets, or partners, or any information that would be in violation of the agreement between the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Senate?” The security guard rattles off the protocol, a memorized passage that both he and Dan know by heart at this point.

“Have a good night, Jay.” Dan doesn’t answer the question, he doesn’t have to, he doesn’t need to.

Instead, with some kind parting words from Jay as permission to leave, he walks out through the door and into dark damp streets of the real world, a world which has passed him by, two years shot in the blink of an eye.

Dan sits in his car and sighs, for a minute or two, or twenty. He rubs the back of his hand against his eyes, blinks a couple of times. He’s been debating getting a pair of glasses, the new kind that block out the blue light from screens – god knows he could use that. He’s more tired than usual, and with good reason, he sighs. He looks at himself in the rearview mirror, sees the bags under his eyes.

“You wouldn’t look good with glasses.” He shakes his head at himself, dismissing the thought.

He sits in his car and folds his arms over the steering wheel, rests his head down on top of them and wills himself not to scream. He thinks back over the events of the day, of the last couple hours, thinks about how he’s going to have to go through this alone now. In retrospect, he should have known this was coming. He just had hoped…well. He had only hoped it wouldn’t be so soon, wouldn’t be right when they were finally starting to connect dots, piece together the puzzle, wouldn’t be right when they were only just beginning.

* * *

Dan noticed April gently approaching him, her arms crossed over her chest. He glanced at the clock, realized he’d been reading this document for nearly three hours, picking it apart, studying it. He’s glad for April’s audience, and he didn’t waste much time launching into what he’d just learned, knowing that she would be just as interested in it as him.

“Did you know that the CIA testified in 1978 before Congress on the subject of – of ‘coercive physical interrogation techniques’ in Latin America? And how they concluded that they were proven to be ineffective – that the prisoners would lie just to make it stop?” Dan scoffed, frustrated, shaking his head.

April had shifted in her spot a little then, had cleared her throat, but Dan wasn’t entirely paying attention, not even when she tried to interject with,

“Dan, there’s something I have to say – ”

“But before they did it in Latin America they did it in Vietnam! It didn’t work then and it isn’t working now and – ”

“Dan, Dan I’m leaving.” April had said, with such finality that it shut Dan up. She had held her ground, her arms crossed over her chest, in that dark cold basement, and told him, “The study, I’m leaving. I can’t do this anymore, I’m sorry. I got a job offer and I’ll be packing up once the Thanksgiving break finishes.”

Dan held his breath, wondered if this were another one of his nightmares. He’d been having them more and more recently, but this was never one of the plot points.

He blinked, stared at her and then at his computer, watched as the screen flickered for a moment, as if it too were uncomfortable, stressed.

“Thanksgiving.” Dan had replied (and in his car, Dan wants to kick himself for making such a point of himself, for proving their point because he had stupidly said), “That’s – okay well that still gives us a couple months and – ”

“It’s November, Dan. Thanksgiving’s next week.” Julian had gently reminded him.

“…Right.” He was deflated, embarrassed, and faced with the reality that maybe he was losing his grip on reality. He can’t look at her, at April. The screen flickered, and he sighed. “Right I – I…Right. Okay.”

“I’m sorry, I am, it’s just that…well you said it yourself, the CIA knew decades ago that this shit didn’t work. They knew and they’ve known the whole time that their program is ineffective now but who is listening to us? Who is waiting for us to come out with all of this?” April tried to explain, even though she didn’t really need to. Her voice was soft and gentle as she placed a hand on his shoulder and tried to talk some sense into him, “We’ve been down here for two years, Dan, the three of us in this basement, typing up thousands and thousands of pages. No one is waiting for us.”

And that was it, wasn’t it? That was the cold hard truth that Dan refused to accept. Every day, Monday through Friday and weekends, he’d been there. They’d all been there, working and working and working until their eyes grew sore, until their backs went stiff and their wrists ached, scrounging together as much information as possible – while under impossible restraints.

No cooperation from the CIA.

No cooperation from the DOJ.

Three people in a basement, trying their best to bring justice to an unjust situation, and being vilified for it.

Dan sighs, both in his memory of the exchange, and in his car.

“I understand. I do.” He said, because he did. He didn’t like it, he wouldn’t accept it, but he understood it. That was enough for April, enough for Julian, enough for them when Dan nodded and sighed once again, glancing at the calendar. “Thanksgiving.”

“I’m sorry.” April had said again, before going back to her desk.

Dan locked eyes with one of the mugshots on the wall, and he thinks that it’s not him that April should be apologizing to.

* * *

He starts the car, smacks a palm against his cheeks lightly to shake himself out of this funk. He’s just tired, he knows. He’s tired and it’s been a long day, that’s all. The dashboard lights up and he’s relieved to see it’s not _that_ late, not really. It’s only eleven, he’s stayed later before. Washington D.C. is never not busy, but Dan finds that later in the evening like this, on a weekday no less, there’s always a little less traffic, for which he’s appreciative.

His stomach is appreciative too, it growls and growls the entire drive home, so much so that Dan makes a pit stop at a Chinese takeout place, lured in by the idea of fresh eggrolls and beef lo mein.

The neon sign blazes brightly in the night sky. Something about the world when it’s just finished raining makes everything more rich, more vibrant, Dan thinks. Maybe it’s got something to do with the way that the water on the ground reflects the colors. Maybe he’s just being sentimental, he doesn’t know.

“Mr. Jones! You’re here early.” Cindy, the young woman behind the counter greets him when Dan walks through the door.

“They let me out for good behavior.” His joke falls flat, just a little. Still, she looks at him with a fond smile and shakes her head, before ringing up his usual.

He’s been coming here at least once a week every week ever since this thing started. He never really meant to fall into the habit of relying on takeout, but when one works fifteen-eighteen hour days every day, the prospect of cooking and cleaning up your own kitchen quickly grows less than ideal.

Dan watches her for a while, as he hands over his credit card. He thinks about how she always smiles at him, and wonders if she smiles at everyone else too, or if that’s something just for him. He shakes his head slightly, chastising himself. Of course it’s not just for him, they’ve not spoken beyond the typical small talk while he sits around and waits for his order. She never initiates conversation past that of the weather, and why should she? She’s busy, Dan thinks, busy with the restaurant, with her life.

He tries not to let the thought depress him, the thought that maybe if it weren’t for this report, he could be out busy living his life too. Tries not to think about how he could be married by now, have kids by now. He tries not to think about the girlfriend he used to have, before all of this, tries not to think about how she left him because well, really, he had left her first. He wasn’t a very good partner, he knows – how could he have been? Holed up in that basement, unable to talk about anything he did.

Cindy hands him the neatly packaged bundle of his dinner, and he thanks her for it. She doesn’t know that he goes back to his apartment and eats by himself in the dark every night, but then again, she doesn’t have to. She gives him another one of her smiles as he offers a little wave goodbye, and he’s walking to the parking lot, the interaction and the thoughts behind him.

It’s worth it, he thinks, as he walks back to his car. One day, one day soon, Dan knows it’ll all be worth it.

Climbing into his car, Dan notices something.

Or maybe, he thinks he notices something.

There’s a car in the parking lot that wasn’t there before, was it? He doesn’t remember anyone getting out, no one came into the restaurant while he was there, and no one had left when he showed up. It’s black, with windows so tinted that he’s sure he wouldn’t be able to look in even on a bright sunny day. Something about that churns his stomach some more.

“You need to eat and sleep.” Dan shakes the paranoia out of his head, it wouldn’t do to dwell, not right now, not after he’s poured a fresh new batch of images of torture behind his eyelids, dancing in front of his vision whenever he seems to blink. Wouldn’t do to dwell on the thought that maybe he’s being followed.

He keeps an eye on the car though, as he pulls out of the parking lot. It doesn’t move, and he releases the breath he didn’t even know he was holding, as he turns some corners and goes down some back roads, ends up in front of the building he calls home.

* * *

It’s not that he can’t afford a house, because he can. He makes a significant amount of money, being a Senate staffer at his level. He could afford something nice in a nice neighborhood, green lawn and driveway out front, maybe an in-ground pool out back for the summer time. He can afford it, he just doesn’t see the point in it, not right now, not with the report.

The apartment though, isn’t bad -- it’s not! It’s a very nice, luxury apartment, with a doorman and a parking garage and everything.

“How’s it going Edgar?” Dan asks, as he passes said doorman, a young chipper guy who Dan wouldn’t have expected to have such a mature name.

Maybe if he and Edgar were friends, he’d call him Eddie. Dan’s not so sure what other nicknames there are for something old fashioned like that. Maybe if they were friends, he’d tell Dan.

“Not too bad Mr. Jones, yourself?” Edgar doesn’t comment on the fact that he’s practically hiding the takeout behind his briefcase, and Dan appreciates it immensely.

“Not too bad.” He echoes with a smile, before stepping into the safety and security of the lobby and making his way over to the elevators, his polished shoes clacking on polished tile as he gives a warm, “Stay dry out there.”

The elevator is empty, thankfully. He leans against the mirror wall and sighs deeply, groans just because he can. He lives on the eighth floor of the building, which gives him about ten seconds of peace, before the doors open again. He likes his apartment building, likes the doorman and the elevator. He likes how each floor has its own little display when he exits the elevator, decorated for whatever holiday is up next.

The lobby’s display probably should have clued Dan in to the fact that it was already November, but he can’t really be blamed for not noticing. He notices now though, and he can’t deny that he’s impressed. There’s a large wicker cornucopia on the antique wooden credenza which sits flush against the wall opposite of the elevator.

In the cornucopia are fake fruits and vegetables in a beautiful array of autumnal colors, reds oranges yellows and plum. He reaches out to pick up one of the faux squashes, impressed by the weight of it. He’d been halfway expecting cheap styrofoam, but these were more solid than that. Idly Dan realizes that he must have completely skipped over Halloween, and something about that puts a bit of a pep in his step.

He leaves the lobby and turns around the corner, goes down the hall until he’s faced with his front door. He’s lucky that there aren’t too many apartments on this floor, his neighbors are down a ways on either side. He likes the privacy, not that he uses it much. Putting his key in the lock and pushing the door open, he can’t really remember a time where he spent an entire day lounging in his living room.

Which is a shame, Dan thinks, because just as he does every time he comes home, he finds that he really does like this place. It’s bright, inviting. Not clean or sterile, nothing overly modern or minimalist, but he has enough dark and gloom at work, he doesn’t need that here, not in his one-bedroom apartment. The walls are a light grey color, the kitchen and living room accented with blue and cool tones. He likes blue, Dan does.

All his appliances are stainless steel, to go along with the color palette, and he likes that too. He thinks it makes him feel more like an adult, like a real person. And he is, isn’t he? Daniel Jones, Senate Staffer. That’s a real person name and a real person job, isn’t it?

Why does it all feel like a sham?

“Eat, and sleep.” He mutters to himself as he steps out of his shoes and puts them neatly in the closet by the door.

He rests his briefcase down on the kitchen counter, brings the takeout over to the rectangular dining table. He didn’t know what he was thinking, buying this dinner table. Maybe he thought he’d have guests over, women over. Now it just feels empty, a table too big for just one person.

Still, it gives him enough room to spread out, which is nice. He keeps the table set all the time, the way they do in old television sitcoms and in movies. He loves movies, and he puts one on now. Nothing high action or stressful, no he’s not got the emotional or mental bandwidth for that these days. Instead, he scrolls through his OnDemand and lets something from the ‘30s dance across the screen in black and white, while he eats his dinner.

Dan tips the takeout onto the plate in front of him – one of the things he refuses to do is eat straight out of the container. Something about that feels like crossing a line into some kind of downward spiral. He can wash one dish, one fork and knife, one glass. He can do that, he has the time for that.

He’s not got time for much, but he’s got the time for that.

Dan eyes his briefcase, thinks about what Jay had said. He’d never taken anything from work before, and he didn’t plan on taking anything from work anytime soon. No, everything in his briefcase was allowed to be there, what was in his apartment was allowed to be there.

“It’s for the best anyway,” Dan says to himself, as the music from the movie swells and flows, a beautiful tap number numbing his mind from the repeated images that are so keen to flash. “Imagine if you brought that shit home more than you already do.”

He scoffs at the idea, at smuggling something out of the basement, out of the building. What would he even do with it? Where would he even put it? No, he thinks, everything that’s important will stay in the office where it’s the safest. The CIA isn’t allowed inside that room, that’s part of the agreement that they made.

“Good thing too, they wouldn’t be too fucking thrilled to read the documents I’m reading.” He’s stopped caring about talking to himself a long time ago, and now that April and Julian will be leaving him, he figures he’ll need the good company, or else he may really go insane.

He sighs, sighs at the knowledge that they’re leaving.

Two years they’d been together, the three of them. Dan’s only a little upset – he’s more scared. Scared of having to go down this rabbit hole alone. Scared of wasting himself away in the basement, surrounded by the ghosts of men who were put through conditions so inhumane that it wakes Dan in the middle of the night, throat hoarse, screaming and raw. What’s worse is he’s scared that they’re right, that no one will care.

But Dan cares. Dianne cares. It’s enough to know that Dianne’s got his back, that’s enough.

Still, they’d gotten a lot accomplished in those two years.

It had started of course, with the tapes.

* * *

“What tapes?” Dan had asked, a confused frown on his face.

Dan had been in the middle of a meeting when Marcy, Chief of Staff to Senator Dianne Feinstein, had called him out for a moment or two, a folded newspaper in her hands. Dan recognized it, the New York Times, and it was opened to a ground-breaking story of coverups and espionage. He stood in Dianne’s office and scanned over the small print of the story, growing more and more confused with each word he read.

“Evidently, the CIA destroyed tapes of interrogations, interrogations that had been conducted on al-Qaeda detainees.” Marcy said, but nothing rang a bell for Dan.

“Does – did the Intel Committee know that there even were tapes?” He had to ask, wondering if he was simply out of the loop, or if this was about to become something much larger than it already was.

When Dianne shook her head and clasped her hands together behind her desk, when she pressed her lips into a thin line of frustration of her own, Dan knew that it was the latter.

“No, this New York Times story is the first we’ve heard of it. I want you to find out what was on those tapes and why they were destroyed. We’d like you to lead an investigation, Dan.” She spoke clearly, always had, Dianne did. Dan appreciated that, appreciated her candidacy.

It didn’t lessen his confusion, however.

“But if the tapes were destroyed then how do I – ” He started, handing Marcy back the newspaper with a thankful nod.

“Written records. The CIA says they have written records of what was on the tapes, thousands of pages. I want you to find out what it is they actually have, and read every word of it. I want to know what else they’re hiding.” Dianne instructed, and the weight of the task was enough to make Dan stand up a little straighter.

The concept of going through a thousand pages of written records of interrogations had, at the time, seemed like the most intimidating and overwhelming undertaking Dan would have gone through in his life. Oh, if only he had known what he was getting himself into, if only he had had a shred of a clue.

“Yes, Senator.” He agreed anyway, knowing the stress this was bound to bring.

And stressful it had been, but he had done it. He had found horribly disturbing materials indicative of the conditions in the CIA Detention and Interrogation program. He had read those thousands of pages, and he had relayed them to Dianne, and in the end, despite it all, the findings had remained classified.

But through the tapes, the door to the greater EIT Program report had been opened.

Dan of course was the immediate first choice to lead the investigation, considering he already had the security clearances as a result of working on the tapes case. And he had been happy to do it, happy to push forward – the tapes might remain classified, but if he could expose these conditions, if he could bring this to light, then that wouldn’t be in vain.

None of the suffering and illegal practices would have happened in vain.

* * *

It hadn’t been easy in the beginning, dealing with the CIA. Although, Dan huffs out a little laugh to himself as he watches the movie, when was dealing with the CIA ever easy? From the very first day they’d proven themselves to be smug bastards who held themselves above the law, the very thing Dan was trying to convict them of.

* * *

The first day he was given a very brief tour of the office, an off-site in Virginia where he would have to commute. It wasn’t a long drive, part Dan already knew that the drive would feel ten times longer after a grueling day of uncovering whatever bullshit the CIA was trying to hide.

He had been met by a middle-aged man named Sean Murphy, who had brought him inside. They had shaken hands, and Sean wasted very little time, in that way that CIA agents tended to do. They were brusque, the lot of them, Dan thought. He wasn’t particularly a fan, but whether that was because he was with the FBI for four years, or because he’d never had a good interaction with a CIA agent, was still to be seen.

“The room we’ve designated for you is SCIF; no phone reception, no photos, you know the drill.” Sean had led him down down down dark stairwells and corridors, deeper and deeper into the belly of the building.

Part of Dan wondered if they’d given him such a shitty space out of spite. It seems like something they would do, make the investigation as passive-aggressively frustrating as possible.

“Yes and per the requirements, the room is completely off limits to everyone aside from Committee personnel?” Dan kept his tone light, despite the literal darkness they were descending into. He was relieved to hear Sean’s hum of agreement.

“Absolutely. No one inside without your permission.” The Agent nodded, arriving finally at the door.

It’s metal, windowless, and locked with a combination pad. There’s a small placard which read: United States Senage Intelligence Committee Staff Only. By Order of the Director of Central Intelligence.

Sean pointed to the sign, as if to appease Dan, and Dan only nodded in response. Sean punched in the code on the combination pad, and opened the door for Dan to bare witness to this cell of a room that he was to spend the next foreseeable future working out of.

It was a spotless room, grey from floor to ceiling. Cold and sterile, no windows, no other doors, just six desks and six computer monitors.

_Somewhere in the present, Dan grimaces at how he once had five other people working with him on this shitshow. How he had had two other Democrats and three Republicans, an attempt for bi-partisan facts. And now it was just him, all alone._

“Computers?” Dan had asked, running his hand over the top of one of them. He was glad to see that at least the space was clean – no dust swiped off when he traced his fingers lightly.

“All right here at your disposal. You get your own dedicated server just for you. We’ll be updating the database as we go, the files will be loaded onto the server as we collect them from across the Agency.” Sean had crossed his arms over his chest, and Dan nodded, understandable.

“Perfect, we’ll want all relevant documents as soon as possible, get this thing underway.” He put his hands on his hips, if Sean wanted to psyche him out with body language, Dan would show that he wasn’t to be trifled with, at least in this small way.

“Well, you know that could take some time, we have to vet it first.” Sean shrugged, “There’s a lot to go through and – ”

“Vet? No, Director Panetta agreed to give us _everything_ pertaining to the program. Everything.” Dan interrupted him immediately, brows furrowed. “Why – who would be vetting it?”

There was simply no way that Dan could run a thorough investigation if materials were being withheld from the Committee, and if the CIA were the only ones allowed to vet CIA documents due to the sensitive nature of their material, then Dan could only imagine what they would withhold. The displeasure must have been clear as day across Dan’s face, because Sean only shrugged again.

“Listen Mr. Jones, we understand your situation, but it’s a big Agency. We have to make sure you don’t get anything you’re not supposed to.” He tried to explain, and Dan bit his tongue, instead turning to survey the room once again.

“There’s no printer.” He noticed aloud, “No paper?”

Sean had almost laughed at him for that, and still to this day, that makes Dan uneasy.

“No documents are allowed to leave the room without CIA approval. As I’m sure you can understand, Mr. Jones, paper has a way of getting people in trouble at our place.” Sean had said in a hushed voice, a conspiratorial voice, a voice that made Dan want to grit his teeth.

“And I’m sure that _you_ can understand, Mr. Murphy, paper is how we keep track of laws, at ours.” Dan had replied seriously.

* * *

He should have known then, that they weren’t going to play nicely.

Two years, and they’d only been getting more and more difficult.

Dan finishes up his dinner relatively quickly, sleep dragging in his bones. He’d been up at the office bright and early at eight o’clock in the morning and he was now nearing on midnight. Bringing his dishes to the kitchen, he quickly but efficiently washes them and sets them on the drying rack near the sink, never bothering to use the dishwasher. He doesn’t need to, when he’s the only one here.

He goes straight to the bathroom, turns the shower on as hot as it will go. The hamper was only about half full – or was it half empty? – so he knows he can hold off doing laundry for another day or two at least, as he dumps his clothes from the day into the little heap.

Naked, Dan stands in front of the mirror and looks at himself, really looks at himself. He’s attractive, he thinks, in that way that he hopes so, anyway. He maintains his workout routine, which is probably a good idea, considering how much time he spends just sitting around and eating takeout. Maybe he’ll go for a run tomorrow. He thinks he deserves a day off, it’s not like he’s got to show up and report to anyone other than Dianne, but she isn’t expecting an update until after the holiday weekend anyway.

“Run tomorrow,” Dan tells himself in the mirror, lifts his arms and flexes his muscles just to check himself out, make sure that he knows what he looks like, makes sure he’s real, a real person. Steam from the shower begins to curl along the glass, and Dan knows it’s hot enough for him to get in and scrub the day away. “Shower, sleep, and then run tomorrow.”

He makes sure there’s a nice clean towel nearby, and sighs out a breath of relief as he steps under the scalding spray. He lathers up his shampoo and breathes breathes breathes in the calming scent of bergamot and sandalwood, pretends he’s down by the beach somewhere instead of here alone in his apartment. He’s too tired to jerk off, which feels a little sad but not sad enough to bother Dan too much.

He’ll indulge himself tomorrow, he decides as he rinses the suds away. Tomorrow will be a better day than this one, it has to be. He’ll make it so.

After washing his body and applying his conditioner, he steps out of the shower and wraps himself up, pads across the little hall to his bedroom. He slips into warm pajamas and is about to pull back the covers of his neatly made bed, when he notices a piece of paper resting in the tray of his printer/fax machine.

Dan frowns, how long had that been there?

He hesitantly, very hesitantly, approaches the fax machine. It’s a blank piece of paper, nothing on it – aft first glance. Dan thinks he catches a flash of something, maybe its his eyes playing tricks on him, he doesn’t know. But he turns on the lamp near his printer and holds the piece of paper up and his blood runs cold when he reads:

**_56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial_ **

**_Constitution Gardens, Washington, DC 20245_ **

**_Sunday 11:30:00 AM_ **

**_Destroy this._ **

He doesn’t know what compels him, but he rushes to the window. He doesn’t open it, doesn’t do anything so foolish as that, but he peels back the curtain just enough to see it, to see that black car with its tinted windows, driving away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading, I hope you've enjoyed this first chapter! Tags will be updated at the beginning of each chapter, but please know that along with plot there is absolute filth and raunchy raunchy sex on the way! 
> 
> As always please feel free to let me know what you think so far in the comments, or by paying my blog a visit! You can find me on tumblr @babbushka 
> 
> Sending you all love!


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